Understand the system before judging the judges

Paul Sheehan's piece ("The contempt is mutual, your honour", Herald, March 8) is opportunistic journalism at its worst. Moreover, it is couched in offensive and poisonous language to the great discredit of the author.

Far worse than these, however, is that it clings to the running board of a very old and overcrowded bandwagon full of commentators with nothing to say. Is there not a journalist somewhere who understands the rule of law, due process, natural justice or the right to a fair trial? Does nobody understand or appreciate that the system of criminal justice we have in this country is second to none?

Victims of horrible crimes have the sympathy and understanding of everybody, including judges. But no right-thinking person would feel comfortable with convicting an accused person of any crime if there were the slightest chance of a miscarriage of justice.

How often have we seen the media champion calls for judicial inquiries into the plight of people thought to have been wrongly convicted? The decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal is a perfect example of the system working. The cost of a new trial should not even enter the debate.

Juries cannot be quarantined from all extraneous influences. Nor should any doubt attend the verdicts they return.

If Paul Sheehan wants to ensure that public faith in the legal system is strengthened he should try to understand that system before making any further contemptuous and ill-informed comments.

I would like to congratulate and thank Paul Sheehan for his excellent article. I believe the media need to campaign against judges who seem more concerned with the criminals than with the victims. Thanks to judges in Australia, many criminals are getting very lenient sentences, resulting in an increase in crimes.

Joe da Silva, Hornsby, March 8.

After concurring with Paul Sheehan, I have two questions: am I excluded from jury service because I read the newspapers? Do judges not read newspapers, watch TV or use computers? Remember, people on trial can choose to have a case heard by a jury or by a judge.

B.W. Young, Coffs Harbour, March 8.

Paul Sheehan complains that this court decision will weaken the public's faith in the legal system. In my experience as a juror, a more efficient way to do that would be for people to actually serve on a jury. They would then realise that this lack of faith in (many) jurors is appallingly appropriate.

Adam Hyland, Gladesville, March 8.

Paul Sheehan's article opened with a reference to Justices Wood and Mason being "packed in silk and horsehair" (Justice Sully, presumably, delivered his dissenting judgement in shorts and a T-shirt). These cliches are rolled out to reinforce the stereotype that judges are untroubled by common sense and lost in their world of arcane language.

My faith in Mr Sheehan's common sense frayed a little when he gasped at the jury's verdict being thrown out "in its entirety", as if a more understandable result would have been to quash the conviction just a little bit.

And we didn't even get past point three of his 12 reasons without reading the following: "Mason and Wood did not even try to unbind themselves from the antediluvian legal precedents that seek to immunise a jury from the impact of external media coverage or commentary."

The rough English translation would be: "The judges didn't overrule hundreds of cases that have said that juries should not hear inadmissible evidence about an accused's case." Never mind that the NSW Supreme Court can't overturn a principle approved by the High Court of Australia. Never mind that it was not asked to. I can't wait for those "space restrictions" to be lifted so that we can get the full benefit of Mr Sheehan's genius.

Simon Healy, Drummoyne, March 8.

Only the wealthy groups win in a beds auction

The concept of auctioning nursing home bed licences misses the point ("Nursing home operators face beds auction", Herald, March 8). Only the largest operators with significant capital reserves will be able to afford to pay the Federal Government for the privilege of providing this essential human service.

Forty per cent of nursing homes in NSW ran at a loss last year, with many others making only a modest surplus. Faced with rising costs such as nurses' wages and inadequate indexation of government subsidies, this situation will only get worse.

Rather than adopting a model which equates aged care to a licence to provide mobile phones or a radio station, it would be better to acknowledge the simple reality that aged care needs more money.

And the Government and those using aged care who can afford to will have to pay more.

Paul Sadler, CEO, Aged and Community Services Association of NSW and ACT, Ashfield, March 8.

It is difficult to see how the proposal to auction nursing home bed licences will create badly needed extra nursing home beds. It could ensure even less access to nursing home care for elderly people, particularly those in rural or remote areas, or in necessitous circumstances.

It will add yet another cost to not-for-profit operators like ourselves, who have already told the Federal Government that the financial arrangements for nursing homes are unworkable.

Previous governments should not have stood by and allowed bed licences to be traded. They are distributed by government without cost and should be handed back when they are no longer able to be used.

Most nursing home bed licences are traded at the moment because they can be converted to low-care hostel places, or used to establish nursing homes where special fees can be charged.

It is disappointing that after all the time and money that went into Professor Warren Hogan's review, this is the best he could come up with. Looking at changing the daily fees would have been more useful and practical.

Litterbugs can clean up

M.G. Bush (Letters, March 8) points out the unfairness of Clean Up Australia Day volunteers having to pick up after litterbugs. There's a simple solution: do away with the fine for littering, and instead force the offender to join in the next clean-up day.

M. Mercurius, Summer Hill, March 8.

It is either one or the lot

Referring to packaging and plastic bags: why do we need to buy a pack of 24 screws or bolts, etc, when we only need one? And why do the two major supermarkets package such items as red onions and Australian oranges in sixes and 10s while displaying imported oranges individually?

George D'Aran, Nelson Bay, March 8.

Getting your groceries out of the supermarket without using a dozen plastic bags is really very simple.

Say "No bags, thanks" to the checkout operator and they will place your purchases to the side. Then you simply put them back into your trolley and take them to your car.

You then pack them into the box or clothes basket you have in your boot so you can easily carry them indoors when you get home. It's easy, practical, and works; and you don't even need any calico shopping bags that the greenies are in a frenzy to sell us.

Darin Russell, Coogee, March 8.

Premature election panic

Would the nervous nellies in the Liberal Party get a grip. There is no doubt John Howard is the best person to lead the Coalition into the next election, and he'll most likely win it.

When push comes to shove, Mark Latham's offerings of a few books and a coastguard won't cut it.

Get back to focusing on good government, your many achievements, and asking reasonable questions of Opposition policy and you should win. Middle Australia will thank you.

Brad Burden, Chatswood, March 8.

A very unhealthy system

It's still early autumn and already the winter of discontent has begun at our hospital.

I hold Mr Howard and Mr Carr responsible for the deplorable state of the health system and in particular for allowing our public hospitals to become unsafe. This week we had the equivalent of three full wards taken up by patients waiting for beds in nursing homes (a Commonwealth responsibility).

This leads to a reduction in elective and even urgent surgery and to a gridlocking of the accident and emergency and intensive care departments such that urgent patients cannot be attended to in the required time frame. Guess what: poor patient outcomes follow a la Campbelltown/Camden.

Incredibly, some nursing homes have empty beds but there aren't enough GPs to service them (medical manpower - another Commonwealth responsibility).

This week our surgeons have been told to halve their routine operating. This is not only devastating for patients but is disastrous for the training of junior doctors and nurses - compounding the problem.

In his recent jibe that Mr Carr's "public hospital system is falling down around his ears", Mr Howard is not recognising the problems caused by poor Commonwealth policies. Mr Carr is also to blame for petulantly leading the walkout at the Council of Australian Governments meeting last year when health was to be a major agenda item.

We are thus left with a system which diverts money away from patient care into strategies aimed at rearranging the deck chairs and plugging the dyke holes. Grow up, boys, and start some meaningful, informed dialogue.

Feminists still relevant

While Naomi Wolf's outing of her Yale English professor 21 years on might have resulted in misgivings by feminists and others, Mike Carlton ("Role makes the man", Herald, March 6-7) is wrong when he writes that "Wolf and her attackers of The Sisterhood have rocketed into self-indulgent irrelevance."

He cites the recent Bulldogs football club scandal and atrocities being suffered by ordinary women in the real world as evidence.

Perhaps this most recent scandal is evidence not of the irrelevance, rather the relevance of the women who "write and read feminist tracts".

In recent years we have seen an increasing conservative backlash against women. There are many examples of this, including the positive discrimination afforded boys in education, the disadvantage women still face in the workforce and the law, the pro-male/anti-women and children decisions being handed down in family law decisions and the misogynistic attitudes to women in sporting culture and society generally.

As this backlash gains momentum it is more important than ever that people write and read feminist tracts. The gains not only to women, but to the whole of society, that resulted from the work of these "irrelevant feminists" of the '60s and '70s are being eroded at an insidious and alarming rate. And surely the recent sporting scandals are perfect examples of this.

Sue Dean, Erskineville, March 8.

Stupidity tends to endure down the ages

When Andrew Taylor wrote (Heckler, March 8), probably tongue-in-cheek, about what he imagines the office of the future will be like, manned by "oldies", he must have expected it to arouse indignation among us geriatrics.

Andrew, it may be a good idea to bear in mind that the stupid old people you visualise were probably stupid in their youth. If you're not very bright when you're young, you won't be very bright when you're old. And vice versa. Physically you change a great deal, but not so mentally.

I'm an octogenarian, a great-grandmother, and I can do all the things he's worried about, such as programming the VCR, using a microwave and a computer, and more. So can most of my contemporaries.

I wonder what he'll be like when he is older?

Renee Simons, Rose Bay, March 8.

Re Andrew Taylor's Heckler ... er, um. Rats. I forget what I was going to say.

Valmai Sutton, Chatswood, March 8.

Your article ("Old Fox gives experts something to chew on", Herald, March 8) was a good news and a good advice story. From this moment, I'll be a forever-masticating "social butterfly".

This will ensure that not only will I still be driving my car when I'm a centenarian but I'll be driving my kids - who have been expecting me to die for 15 years - bonkers.

Yvonne Jones, West Pymble, March 8.

Turnbull's a promising student of politics

Norm Neill (Letters, March 8), if the promise by Malcolm Turnbull never to tell a lie in politics is false, then he is being consistent with his promise.

David Grunstein, Bellevue Hill, March 8.

So Malcolm Turnbull promises never to lie in Parliament. What are the odds that this was his first?

Matthew Adams, St Ives, March 8.

Norm Neill need not fret over the longevity of Malcolm Turnbull's parliamentary career. His commitment to never tell a lie in politics only reinforces his early understanding of the difference between core and non-core promises. A promising student, indeed.

Christopher Clark, Gordon, March 8.

Perfect timing

Every day I get to Summer Hill station at 9am to buy my off-peak ticket and every morning I catch the late-running 8.52 to the city. Works every time.

Daniel Herscovitch, Summer Hill, March 8.

tks 4 the msg

is txt msging dstrying our ablty to wrt englsh?

Michael Stanbridge, Bonnet Bay, March 8.

Mechanical anthem

Having sat through the telecast of the Melbourne Grand Prix, I wonder if any other country has the depth of national pride to enhance its anthem with a drum machine and synthesiser?

David Culkin, Lavender Bay, March 7.

A great Mac attack

I approached the Fleetwood Mac concert last night with some trepidation after reading Bernard Zuel's less-than-scintillating review ("No escape from the Mac attack", Herald, March 6-7). What a relief to find that Bernard had apparently seen an entirely different band with a similar name.

In contrast to his description, this bunch put on a high-energy show, building to an exciting climax that had the audience eating out of their hands. As for the boring drum solo, it bore as much resemblance to a solo as a peacock does to a chicken. First it wasn't a solo: the Mac's brilliant percussionist was a key part of the section, which, unlike standard rock drum outings, was not an improvisation but a wonderfully silly piece of inspired theatre.

After each of the three encores, the crowd was on its feet. Then the band sincerely thanked the Sydney audience for being so great. Which we were. And grateful to see a performance where the artists (especially Lindsay Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood) gave their all. Oh, and Stevie was in fine voice throughout.

Neil Hunt, Pyrmont, March 8.

Flow-on from the golf

If the run-off from the rain that fell on Concord golf course on Sunday morning makes its way to Warragamba's catchment area, the dam's shortfall may well have been replenished.

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